Why Use Search Engine Optimization?
What is SEO? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, a strategy that has become the core of modern online marketing. Optimizing content to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) is the cornerstone of effective web design.
Why should you care about SEO? If you're trying to promote your business or blog online and want to get found by a broader audience, it's essential that you know how to optimize your titles and descriptions so they rank well in search engines. Chances are, most people who find your site this way will turn into customers!
How does SEO work? When someone searches for something on a search engine like Google or Bing, their queries are matched with specific sites that are deemed relevant. This matching is done through a blend of computer software and human intelligence.
These days, search engines are smart enough to recognize certain patterns within web content that can be used to rank content more effectively. These patterns are known as search engine optimization factors . When applied properly, these factors can boost your site in the search rankings.
While SEO is mostly an automated process, there are some best practices that you'll need to follow in order to achieve results. In the sections below, I will explain how one of the most important optimization techniques works: keyword research . Keywords are words and phrases that people use when searching for content on Google. You'll want to make sure that your site is optimized for these keywords so you can rank higher in search engine results.
The importance of keywords in SEO
Keywords are the driving force behind search engine optimization. They're essential to finding people who are interested in a specific topic — like your products, services or content. These people are referred to as your target audience . To attract them, it's imperative that your website is designed for search engines, not for humans.
What does this mean? It means you want to make sure it's easy for search engines to "crawl" your site and understand what it's about: its content and its structure. This is done by making sure your site contains keywords and phrases that people use to describe your target audience.
Here's how a typical website looks:
Title: Pet Woodpeckers Category: Pets & Livestock PageRank: 3/10 Page Authority: 1/10 PA Traffic Rank : 357,724
Some of the key elements on this site are missing: no category title and no breadcrumbs . Also, the page title is not relevant to the page itself. It doesn't really speak about the content of this page (which would be a good idea). Instead, it makes an unclear link to another page on the site, thereby making visitors think that they are on a different page than they actually are.
Here's a newer version of the same page:
Title: Woodpeckers for Sale in San Diego, California, United States Category: Pets & Livestock PageRank: 2/10 PA Traffic Rank : 1,943,701 Some of the key elements on this site are missing: no category title and no breadcrumbs . Also, the page title is not relevant to the page itself. It doesn't really speak about the content of this page (which would be a good idea). Instead, it makes an unclear link to another page on the site, thereby making visitors think that they are on a different page than they actually are.
You can see that the missing elements have been replaced and there's an improved layout. The important elements are no longer off-topic: the category title is clear, and all of the page's content makes sense as a result. You also see that there's a link to the About Us section from the navigation menu. This gives people an idea of where they are on your website, which is extremely important for user experience
The first step of doing keyword research is finding your target audience . This can be done by analyzing and "tapping into" the words people use when they search for something online. There are a few different methods that you can use to do this. The best way is to follow the steps I outlined in my previous article on keyword research . You'll be able to identify the keywords that people have used when searching for your topic and discover patterns in how they write about it.
Once you've identified what kind of keywords your audience uses, you can get started with optimizing your website for them. The next step is determining what content the keywords represent . For example, let's say that we're trying to find out what people are searching for when they look for woodpeckers in San Diego. This is our target audience:
"Woodpeckers in San Diego"
This represents a keyword that people who are interested in "woodpeckers". Therefore, we'll want to see if there's content on our site that's targeting this specific phrase. If we find it, then we can optimize it for the phrase. This is known as keyword targeting . The process of optimizing content to rank higher in search engines is known as search engine optimization . Once you've done keyword research and determined which keywords your primary audience uses, you're ready to optimize your website for these keywords. Here's how you might do this for our target audience:
Step 1: Create a keyword list
Start by identifying all of the phrases that your primary audience uses when searching for content on your topic. For example, if you're selling woodpeckers, you'll want to create a list of all the things people search for in relation to the product. This might include things like: "buy a woodpecker", "make a toy woodpecker" or "woodpeckers in San Diego". The idea here is to try and figure out what people are searching for when they're interested in your content. To do this, we're going to use Google AdWords Keyword Planner . It's an online tool that you can use to identify keywords people are using to find products and services. This tool is also free to use.
To start, go to the Search for new keywords & ad groups tab on the left:
Then enter your primary keyword into the search box (for example, "woodpecker"). The first thing we'll want to do is choose whether or not our primary keyword is related to a product or service:
For most sites I build, I select "product" as my type of business because it's more accurate than selecting "service. This is because I'm trying to convince people to purchase a product, rather than just use my services. Next, select the location where you'd like your ad to appear:
For this example, we're going to choose San Diego as the city and United States as the country:
Next, choose the language that your primary audience uses when searching for products on Google. For example, if you've determined that most of your potential customers speak Spanish, then you'll want to select Spanish.
Conclusion: In the above example, we're going to use "woodpecker in San Diego". These are some of the examples of keywords that we'll be looking at when we do our keyword research process.
Step 2: Rank for top-ranking keywords
Now that we've chosen our primary keyword, we need to think about how to rank for it. The first step is ranking for other related phrases and understanding what people are actually searching for. For example, one of the most popular searches is "buy a woodpecker".